Mark Dion and David Brooks: The Great Bird Blind Debate: Planting Fields Foundation, Oyster Bay, NY

The first of its kind at Planting Fields, this exhibition by artists Mark Dion and David Brooks ushers in the Foundation’s new Catalyst program created to bring newly commissioned work by living artists to the site with the goal of continuing the legacy of arts patronage embraced by the Coes.  The installations of Dion and Brooks are composed within the Carl F. Wedell Bird Sanctuary and a corresponding exhibition including the artists’ renderings and models for the project is on display inside Coe Hall. 

The works frame Dion’s and Brooks’ dueling views on birdwatching or “birding” as an activity and birders as a distinct community, with reflection upon the character and vulnerability of the habitat the observer occupies.  Like the artists, both of whom have participated in numerous ornithology expeditions, Planting Fields founder W.R. Coe was also a bird enthusiast and endowed the Professor of Ornithology position at Yale University, an appointment that historically and currently has been filled by the world’s leading ornithologists.

Mark Dion has had major exhibitions at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York, dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel, Germany, MoMA PS1 in New York City, ICA Boston, British Museum of Natural History in London, Guggenheim Bilbao and the Tate Gallery in London and his work can be found in the collections of MoMA, Tate Gallery, Carnegie Museum of Art, Centre Pompidou and Seattle Art Museum.

David Brooks has had major exhibitions at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut, MoMA PS1 in New York City, Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York, along with exhibitions at the Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, Vizcaya Museum in Miami, Florida and major commissions from The Trust for Governors Island, Art Production Fund with the Time Square Alliance, and deCordova Museum, Massachusetts.